The Ruins of Our Lives
by Saengak
Summary: Kakashi saves Rin, but at a price.


_"Forgive me," Minato said, his head bowed. He clutched at their hands as if he could anchor them by sheer force of will alone. "I have to send the two of you away."_

_Rin laid her other hand gently over his, careful not to scratch him with her claws. "It's okay, sensei. We know you tried."_

_Kakashi just stared out of the hospital window as he picked absently at the hard, grey scales on his arm, his nails stained with his own blood._

* * *

"There's nothing much left, is there?" Rin comments as she looks over the broken wasteland of an island that they had arrived on. The salty sea breeze teases at her face and she turns her face toward it, sighing. "Other than rubble."

Crouched high upon a half-crumbled marble pillar, Kakashi squints his eye against the glare of the setting sun. "There's a temple over there. The facade is going to fall apart, but its other parts look sound."

"Let's try it, then," Rin says, preparing to scale her way to towards the temple. Kakashi leaps down from his perch and lands soundlessly beside her, nodding solemnly. His tails lash behind him restlessly; the only sign of his discomfort in this village where thousands had been massacred.

* * *

The temple is damp and musty, layered over with moss and rot. Rain had leaked through its broken roof, leaving the floorboards puffed out with moisture. Scrunching his nose, Kakashi trails behind Rin as she ventures deeper into the dark, abandoned building. The silence is abruptly shattered when the shouji doors clatter apart under Rin's clawed hands, crumbling into pieces of hollowed kindling and a cloud of wooden shavings. Rin leaps away, sputtering, and Kakashi finds himself braced defensively between her and— well, the leavings of termites.

She huffs out a soft laugh at his protectiveness as she draws the collar of her shirt over her face. "I'm fine, Kakashi," she says, her eyes creased in humour as Kakashi clears his throat and turns away.

"Be careful," Kakashi retorts in embarrassment, taking her hand so he can lead the way instead. "Who knows what else is in here?"

She squeezes back gently.

The soft scale-and-leather of her palm inadvertently reminds him of their wretched state and his heart strains under the weight of his guilt, again. Surely the ghosts of Uzushiogakure are laughing at him now. He had not intended for them to end up like this: half monster, half human, and forever reminded of the tailed beast that lived inside them both. But in his panicked, chakra-depleted state, pressed on all sides by enemies baying for their blood, Kakashi had made a decision. He could not imagine letting Rin die.

Even as Kakashi had grasped the Sanbi with both hands and torn it apart, their bodies had warped with it, sprouting the giant turtle beast's characteristics like some kind of cursed chimera. It had worked, sealing half of the Sanbi's chakra in each of them, but Kakashi wishes that he could have borne the price on his shoulders alone.

* * *

They settle for the night in a room far away from the wall of masks that they had discovered. The painted faces had radiated a strange sort of energy, and neither Rin nor Kakashi had wanted to find out how it would interact with their own, unstable chakra. Kushina had warned them thoroughly of the dangers that still subsisted all over Uzushiogakure. Even the arrays of benign seals could become dangerous if broken, much less those meant to keep intruders away.

It is their mission to investigate the ruins; but unofficially, neither Minato nor Kushina wanted to risk them. The so called mission was just an excuse to get them away from Konoha, where they were feared and reviled by both civilians and shinobi. Those who were aware of Kiri's plans were terrified; and the rest who saw the horns in Rin's hair and the tails protruding from Kakashi's spine were convinced that the seals binding the demon in their bodies would unravel at any moment.

Minato and Kushina did not dare alter Kakashi's sealwork. Kakashi had rewritten Kiri's seal on Rin with an unpracticed hand and minimal knowledge of fuinjutsu, resulting in an chaotically tangled mess that by some miracle worked. Everything from their own chakra to the original seal still scrawled on Rin's stomach was bound together, like a stubborn knot of thread, tangled a hundred times over.

Rin is just grateful to be alive. If only Kakashi could believe it when she says so, too.

* * *

A dome of coral greets Kakashi the next morning, bone-white and as delicate as a sheet of patterned paper. The coral had grown from them as they slept, sprouting around them and arching upwards to meet in the middle. It is as if some animal had swallowed them but rotted away overnight, leaving them surrounded by its bones.

"_Corals die out of water, little Leaf,_" the Sanbi whispers, its amusement washing over him like the frothy sea tide.

Kakashi recoils, his tails dragging behind him like dead weights, and Rin stirs. "What is it?" she murmurs, reaching out for him in concern before noticing the coral that had surrounded them. "Oh, it happened again." She pauses for a moment, her lips pursing thoughtfully before making a startling remark— "It's kind of beautiful, isn't it?"

The Sanbi's fondness trickles into their minds like springwater bubbling from the ground. She smiles, and the sunlight filtering through the broken shouji window lights the crystal depths of her eyes, leaving Kakashi speechless. The moment slips away when she sits up, her hand brushing through her hair and catching on the crown of horns in her hair. The dome of coral crumbles easily once she pushes at it, cracking open like a delicate eggshell.

Kakashi scrubs a hand over his face, pressing on his Sharingan to stem a sudden ache. "Yeah. Beautiful."

* * *

A languid river cuts through Uzushiogakure, running through the ruins to feed the wild conquest of nature before draining into the sea. Rin stands knee deep in the freezing water and does not feel nothing of the cold as she splashes it on her face. It is easier to breathe here, without the fearful tittering and suspicious glares of the people they thought they had known. The water is sweet, and Isobu's tension has all but faded at the salty scent of the sea.

As much as it felt like abandonment, Minato-sensei was right to send them here. She and Kakashi don't need anyone else but each other, and the Isobu doesn't need anything but the vastness of the sea. Even a tailed beast has its soft underbelly, and Rin knows that the Isobu feels loneliness, betrayal, and fear.

"_He is wounded just as we are,_" she confides in the tailed beast as she wades towards the bank. "_Please be patient with him._"

The water ripples around her, and warms. "_I know, little Leaf._"

Rin smiles and watches as Kakashi flicks his fishing line in the distance, sending the bait arcing through the air. It disappears as it falls into the water, but the line remains, gleaming in the morning light like a spider's thread. _"Perhaps this is peace," _she muses. It is strange... almost as if time had frozen and they had left the world behind.

Rin touches the horns on her head again, her clawed hands tracing the smooth grey protrusions parting her hair. She does not mind them all that much, nowadays.


End file.
